Why You're Wrong About Marvel's Phase 4

The MCU. Phase 4. A mess? I don't think so. Many people feel otherwise, apparently. I'm going to try and change their minds! To be clear, this video isn't especially interested in the quality of Phase 4's instalments - even though, for the most part, I enjoyed these projects. I'm not arguing they're all masterpieces. Rather, I'm arguing that the Phase has a focus, has a direction, isn't merely the vomiting forth of random properties that many seem to think it is. Another point to clarify - this isn't a response to any specific video, tweet, post, reaction, etc... It's more my reaction to the general trends of pushback against Phase 4 I've seen over the past months.

#marvel #mcu #videoessay

Timestamps:
0:00 Introduction
3:01 Phase 4 and narrative buildup
7:51 Worldbuilding and the multiverse
9:36 (Meta)worldbuilding?
10:54 New cultures and perspectives
12:59 Genre, form, and style
16:36 Summing up

Phase Four of the Marvel Cinematic Universe is a group of American superhero films and television series produced by Marvel Studios based on characters that appear in publications by Marvel Comics. Phase Four features all of the Marvel Studios productions set to be released from 2021 through 2022. It includes WandaVision, Falcon and the Winter Soldier, Loki, Black Widow, What If, Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, Hawkeye, Spider-Man: No Way Home, Moon Knight, Ms Marvel, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, Thor: Love and Thunder, She-Hulk: Attorney at Law, Werewolf by Night, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, and the GOTG Holiday Special. Phase 4 has introduced various new branches to the MCU, including Disney+ shows, Marvel Special Presentations, and animated projects.

[MiguelGonzalez-slhw]

As much as I don’t enjoy Phase 4, I feel that it gets overhated for the wrong reasons. My gripes with phase 4 is Disney not giving as much creative control to their directors and their treatment of special Fx teams who are overworked. If anything, the diversity of new perspectives is actually well appreciated.

[redtiger]

This video is a fresh of air honestly. While I haven't liked everything in phase 4, I honestly am tired of seeing every youtubers talk about how bad everything is and how the mcu will never be the same or is becoming "woke". You can get caught in a negative spiral if you listen to that much negatively.

[juliiju]

Another important point is that we know that phase 5 is going to be more "focused". Ant-Man Quantunmania and GOTG v3 are both the third part of a trilogy, and Quantunmania literally has the villain of Loki as the main villain, The Marvels a sequel and connects to two other shows by featuring two of their characters, Captain America 4 is a sequel, continues the plot of a show and old characters from the MCU return, Thunderbolts is literally a team-up, and Blade probably connects with Eternals.

[callummacalister]

The same thing happened with Phase 2 - people were complaining that it wasn't focused and was just listless, but it was setting up the MCU for Phase 3. If you can't see how many threads are being carefully placed in Phase 4 to be picked up and developed in a focused way in Phase 5, I don't know what to tell you.

[imjamespopcorn]

Before watching the video: I’ve noticed three key themes uniting phase four, in my opinion.
#1: Choice
In Wandavision, the people were given no choice but to be in the sitcom world. Only when Wanda chose to let them go could they leave.
In F&WS, Sam chooses to not be the new cap, leading to Walker getting the shield.
In Loki, they explore if these basically gods are controlling the timeline, do you really choose your own path?
In Black Widow, the Black Widows had no choice but to work for Dreykov
In Shang Chi, he chooses not to be his father.
In What If, choice is pretty obviously a theme.
In Eternals, they characters choose to go against their god.
Hawkeye doesn’t really apply.
In Spider-Man No Way Home, Peter chooses to help the villains and he chooses for everyone to forget him
In Moon Knight, the theme is kinda there that they can’t choose to not do something wrong before their killed by Amit.
Dr strange 2 doesn’t really apply
I don’t remember if Ms marvel applies.
In Thor 4, Jane chooses to die a hero than to live with regret, and gorr chooses to love, not hate.
In she hulk, Jen doesn’t choose to have her powers, and it leads to problems in her life.
#2: Grief I’m just going to list all that apply (cuz it’s kinda obvious)
Wandavision
Black Widow (kinda)
What If…?
Spider-Man No Way Home
Thor 4
Black Panther 2
#3 Legacy
F&WS
Black Widow
Hawkeye
Wakanda Forever
Those are just my thoughts though

[ThePonderer]

What I love about Phase 4 is that thematically it has a pretty clear unifying question- What Makes a Person Themselves?

Throw a dart at phase 4, and you hit a story that’s (after one fashion or another) about how much has to happen to a person before they stop being “themselves, ” and what that self even means.

[Indeeee]

I don't care what anyone says, I really loved the fact that Phase 4 has self contained stories like Moon Knight, Hawkeye & even She-Hulk. Sure they'll be connected to some grand story arc (it's a cinematic universe afterall), but this way there'll always be something to look forward to even if you're tired with the franchise. Self contained stories are what a long running franchise needs imo.

[asorlokirunarsson]

My main concern about phase 4 is loss quality in favor of quantity

[SomeSmexyBeast]

Love the work bud, thanks for not trying to appease the toxic side of this fandom as many others did for short term gain

[gaidencastro]

To my understanding, your argument is that phase 4 is not unfocused, but seeks to expand the possibilities of the universe for future films.

My argument boils down to this: Did these individual movies and shows need to be mediocre for phase 5 to be good?

[guillemtb]

My biggest problem with Phase 4 is honestly how many things there are to keep up. Not only they are putting more films per year than in Phase 3, you also have to watch the TV shows. I liked the few things I watched (Black Widow and Dr. Strange 2), but I'm honestly overwhelmed by the amount of work this phase requires.

[ryaner]

I think a huge problem with engagement in phase 4 is the volume of content. 1-3 you had a film every 6-12 months, and that was an easy lift when it came to being a fan. Now, with the shows, it just feels constant, and for me, wearying. It's hard watch all of the shows, they have been mixed and there is books to read, plays to see, other shows to watch. They feel far less essential.

Also, the point about phase 2 not being focused is kind of moot, because both in phase 3's narrative and in how marvel has announced content, marvel has trained its audience to expect an overarching narrative with a obvious giant antagonist. It's hard to then complain when audiences are upset when they don't get that.

[bjarkisteinnpetursson]

The problem with phase 4 has never been a lack of focus or set up. It’s actually actively setting up more than Phase 1 did. The problem is the quality of the writing and filmmaking. In the first three phases, a bad Marvel movie was an outlier. Now we’re surprised when Black Panther: Wakanda Forever is a competently told story with heart and a voice and feels like a real movie.

[randybnubz]

I actually loved Phase 4. It was definitely messier, but I liked seeing the MCU try new things.

[whodatboi]

The discussion around 5:00 makes an important point about the recency bias around the supposed cohesiveness of the MCU prior to Endgame. If you kept up with the MCU since day one and were honest with yourself you would know that the franchise was fairly hit and miss in the build-up but all would be forgiven if the team-up film came together. So long as everything comes together in the Secret Wars all the misses of Phase 4 will be largely overlooked.

[fernandodecarlosmalcher]

this is honestly one of the most fair videos about phase 4, people expected this phase to be the same as phase 3 building up to the next big climax when the last one just ended, he really seems to have jumped in the phase with an open mind and got a lot out of it instead of wanting every movie and show to be as good as endgame. I've seen so many videos trashing phase 4 that I'm sick of it, mostly because they all say the same crap (all of them), really simplify everything that the phase has done and take it for granted, they all feel like they want those sweet sweet views and youtube money

[NightHao]

I may be an outlier but I have thoroughly enjoyed phase 4 from beginning until now. I'd say its almost as well intertwined as phase 3 and is setting up a lot of things for future phases as well. Most projects have been great and varied, not just a regular action film like before. Its been awesome for me.

[JomaXZ]

My personal issue with Phase 4 is more about the release schedule and production. There is SO much releasing. Quickly. And since I don't particularily like watching TV shows (I just don't enjoy the format and I don't feel like subscribing to D+ just for Marvel) and since they made over half of the slate TV shows... It just made me drop off because it felt like a hassle to keep up with everything.

[DeFaulty]

What I'm most realizing is how much I wish they were thinking ahead from the very beginning. Destroying the bifrost just to have it not mean anything, and be totally rebuilt with hardly any explanation in subsequent films? The unceremonious killing of baron Strucker off camera? Totally ignored or forgotten set ups, like evil Mordo, or Scorpion, or Leader? I would've actually loved it if Ultron was first introduced as an assistant robot in a previous film like he was in the comics, or perhaps a fleet of robot soldiers to help fend off an alien invasion like in EMH. For a franchise that prides itself upon everything being connected, I really wish everything was better connected.

[gbrogo]

My problem isn’t lack of direction, it’s lack of quality. The only phase four stories I liked were Wandavision, Loki, Eternals, and Dr Strange.